THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES

Leviticus 23:33-44 says, “And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel,
saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto
the LORD. On the first day shall be a holy convocation: you shall do no regular work on it. Seven
days you shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD: on the eighth day shall be a holy
convocation unto you; and you shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD: it is a solemn
assembly; and you shall do no regular work on it. These are the feasts of the LORD, which you shall
proclaim to be holy convocations, to offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD, a burnt offering,
and a grain offering, a sacrifice, and drink offerings, everything on its day: Besides the sabbaths of
the LORD, and besides your gifts, and besides all your vows, and besides all your freewill offerings,
which you give unto the LORD. Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have
gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep a feast unto the LORD seven days: on the first
day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath. And you shall take on the
first day the fruit of choice trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of leafy trees, and
willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days. And you
shall keep it as a feast unto the LORD seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in
your generations: you shall celebrate it in the seventh month. You shall dwell in booths seven
days; all that are born Israelites shall dwell in booths: That your generations may know that I made
the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD
your God. And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the feasts of the LORD.”

The Feast of Tabernacles Overview

The Feast of Tabernacles is a week-long autumn harvest festival. Tabernacles is also known as the Feast of the
Ingathering, Feast of the Booths, Sukkoth, Succoth, or Sukkot (variations in spellings occur because these words are
transliterations of the Hebrew word pronounced “Sue-coat”). The two days following the festival are separate holidays,
Shemini Atzeret and Simkhat Torah, but are commonly thought of as part of the Feast of Tabernacles.

The Feast of Tabernacles was the final and most important holiday of the year. The importance of this festival is indicated
by the statement, “This is to be a lasting ordinance.” The divine pronouncement, “I am the Lord your God,” concludes this
section on the holidays of the seventh month. The Feast of Tabernacles begins five days after Yom Kippur on the fifteenth
of Tishri (September or October). It is a drastic change from one of the most solemn holidays in our year to one of the
most joyous. The word Sukkoth means “booths,” and refers to the temporary dwellings that Jews are commanded to live
in during this holiday, just as the Jews did in the wilderness. The Feast of Tabernacles lasts for seven days and ends on
the twenty-first day (3x7) of the Hebrew month of Tishri, which is Israel’s seventh month.

This holiday has a dual significance: historical and agricultural (just as Passover and Pentecost). Historically, it was to be
kept in remembrance of the dwelling in tents in the wilderness for the forty-year period during which the children of Israel
were wandering in the desert.

It is expounded in Leviticus 23:43 That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths,
when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.

What were they to remember?

1.) The meanness of their beginning, and the low and desolate state out of which God advanced that people. Note: Those
that are comfortably fixed ought often to call to mind their former unsettled state, when they were but little in their own
eyes. 2.) The mercy of God to them, that, when they dwelt in tabernacles, God not only set up a tabernacle for Himself
among them, but, with the utmost care and tenderness imaginable, hung a canopy over them, even the cloud that
sheltered them from the heat of the sun. God’s former mercies to us and our fathers ought to be kept in everlasting
remembrance. The eighth day was the great day of this holiday, because then they returned to their own houses again,
and remembered how, after they had long dwelt in tents in the wilderness, at length they came to a happy settlement in
the land of promise, where they dwelt in goodly houses. And they would the more sensibly value and be thankful for the
comforts and conveniences of their houses when they had been seven days dwelling in booths. It is good for those that
have ease and plenty sometimes to learn what it is to endure hardness.  
They were to keep this holiday in thankfulness to God for all the increase of the year; however, the emphasis is that
Israel’s life rested upon redemption which in its ultimate meaning is the forgiveness of sin. This fact separates this holiday
from the harvest festivals of the neighboring nations whose roots lay in the mythological activity of lesser gods.

The American Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving as a Feast of Tabernacles Celebration

Upon seeing a decorated sukkah for the first time, people remark on how much the sukkah (and the holiday generally)
reminds them of Thanksgiving. The American pilgrims, who originated the Thanksgiving holiday, were deeply religious
people. As they were trying to find a way to express their thanks for their survival and for the harvest, they looked to the
Bible (Leviticus 23:39) for an appropriate way of celebrating and based their holiday in part on the Feast of Tabernacles.